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Monday, February 5, 2018

Last week was, in a word, craptastic. I referenced having family problems two weeks ago, and that drained me on a mental and emotional level, which bled over into the physical. In other words, I literally worried myself into depression and maybe even a little bit physically ill.

At this point I'm mostly better, but not 100%, as evidenced by the fact that I'm writing this post on a Tuesday but backdating it to Monday in order to get back on schedule. I don't know if it'll work, but I have to try.

So here's what's going on with me.

My Face
The last time I saw the plastic surgeon was... late November, I think?... and he said that the swelling on my face would be gone in ~2 months and that I should book another appointment then to see about reducing the scars.

It's now February, so enough time has definitely passed, but my wound is still swollen. Don't get me wrong, it's less swollen than it was, but I don't think it's gotten smaller since Christmas.

I've booked an appointment with the plastic surgeon to find out "Why the hell is this shitbitch still swollen?" Maybe it's just slow to heal. Maybe it's as shrunken as it's going to be. Maybe he can get a needle and drain the thing. I dunno. I'm just annoyed that it isn't better yet and worried because it isn't better.

By the way, to the best of my knowledge I am the first person to coin the term "Shitbitch". I've been using it since the 90s.

Marvel's Runaways on Hulu
Speaking of my injury, like I mentioned back in October, I find solace in escapism when life starts to grind me down. This has resulted in me watching a lot of science fiction and superhero TV and reading fantasy & scifi novels. I'll review some of those later, but for now I'm going to talk about Runaways.

I started watching this because 1) it's Marvel and 2) it's short (10 episodes) so I could feel a sense of accomplishment for having watched it. I've also never read the comics, so I came in with no expectations other than "Marvel usually makes good stuff". (Although, to be honest, I haven't seen Iron Fist because people tell it's terrible, and because of that I haven't seen any of the other Marvel Netflix stuff either.)

Anyway, the first episode of Runaways is almost uniformly bad in that 90% of it is stupid teen drama, with it only becoming truly interesting in the last five minutes. Fast forward through the stuff that bores you (especially the rampant SJWing of the purple-haired one) and watch the parts that catch your attention.

Things get much better in the second episode, though, and the series turns into a cross between "an attractive yet non-threatening and racially diverse teenage CW show" and "Teenage mystery with weird shit that you know will end up being superpowers and/or magic and/or superscience because it says 'Marvel' in the title." They really should have combined and edited the two to make a stronger 2-hour premiere, because the truly shady shit that the parents are up to (as a mild spoiler, the end of the first episode involves them seeing their parents engaging in ritual human sacrifice) is way more interesting than the stupid teenage drama that the kids have going on.

I'm halfway through the series now, and while there's still enough teen angst to fill the aforementioned CW show, there's also some cool stuff: super powers, weird science, someone who I think might be an alien, hints of time travel, and a genetically engineered dinosaur.

So far, the goodness of the show outweighs the eye-rolling teen drama. And to be honest, considering the amount of crap these kids have stumbled into, they're allowed some angst about it.

Finally...

For those who are curious, that is a cock with a 70 gram high explosive fragmentation device attached to it. According to my friend Boris, this was an actual pre-WW2 experiment conducted by the Russian Army, the notion being that you could train chickens to run up to humans (the chickens thinking they would receive food from them), and then the explosive would detonate.

This didn't work as expected because apparently chickens panic when they hear gunfire and explosions! Who knew, right?

Iron Fist is the narrative equivalent of filling a five pound bag with twelve pounds of fertilizer, and then doing the math and thinking it will all fit into a seven pound bag. I recommend realizing that there are three entire plots, woven together by squirrels, loose ends and all. None of the elements are poorly done - Iron Fist is that car with a different color on three doors and the hood. It WORKS, but elegant isn't ever going to be your first choice of words to describe it.

The Fine Print

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The Performer

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What others are saying about me

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